Flooring known as "access flooring" is often used in commercial buildings to provide a false floor above a structural floor, so as to define as access space below the false floor. Air conditioning ducting, cables etc. can then be readily laid in the access space without the necessity of forming special channels in the floor. Commonly, access flooring is provided in computer rooms and like installations, where a large number of electrical cables must be accommodated and where it is necessary to be able to readily gain access to the cables.
One known type of access flooring uses lightweight concrete flooring panels installed on pedestals, which themselves are located on the base floor. Traditionally, the panels are installed manually by a crew. The panels are lifted individually from a stack on a skid and manually positioned on the pedestals. This is labour intensive and time consuming. Further, installation or removal of a panel, where the surrounding positions are already filled with panels, can be difficult to carry out manually.
Accordingly, the present invention has been devised with the objective of providing a machine which can be used to facilitate the laying and removal of such panels.